Life on the road came early for Leffler

Apr. 17, 2014

Jamie Leffler, the daughter of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers bass player Howie Epstein, is the frontwoman for DWNTWN, a band that will release its sophomore EP, 'Til Tomorrow,' on April 29. / Photos courtesy: Debbie Pressman

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Culture shock

Pat Douglas

Jamie Leffler, the daughter of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers bass player Howie Epstein, is the frontwoman for DWNTWN, a band that will release its sophomore EP, 'Til Tomorrow,' on April 29. / Photos courtesy: Debbie Pressman

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Jamie Leffler spent most of her childhood seeing the country from a tour bus and side stage, and it’s clear her life as a performing artist was established when she was little.

Her father was Howie Epstein, the famed bass player for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and her stepmother was Carlene Carter, daughter of June Carter Cash.

She was even incorporated in Carter’s shows for a stretch, called on stage every night to take pictures of the audience.

“My stepmom was so sweet,” recalled Leffler in an interview with the Tribune from her home in Los Angeles. “One time I was sitting there and she said ‘My little stepdaughter is gonna come out here and be my sidekick.’ I didn’t know what the hell to do.

“She ended up having this bit where I would come out during one of her songs and take Polaroid pictures of the audience and throw it out to them. Hop around and sing and do cartwheels and be a kid and be goofy,” she recalled. “That was probably something that showed me how much I enjoy being on stage in front of people.”

Today, Leffler is on stage as the frontwoman for DWNTWN, a band that will release its sophomore EP, “Til Tomorrow,” on April 29.

The pop, indie-rock sounding project is the result of a pairing between Leffler and guitarist Robert Cepeda. Her association with Cepeda happened after dating his brother.

“I’ve known Robert since I was 17. When his brother and I broke up, I stayed. I never left,” she said with a laugh. “I was like ‘I’ve been in this family for five years now. I’m gonna stay in this family.’ I’ve always been a big fan of the music that Robert was writing.

“Even when he was in high school, he had a band that was like the coolest band ever and that was before I knew him,” she recalled. “It kind of had to happen the way it did.”

Leffler was 14 when her father died of a heroin overdose in 2003. Leffler said she has never been the type of person to talk about her father’s death in a public setting. That all changed when she sat down to pen what became the song “Heroin.”

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“I didn’t expect to start writing it about my dad until probably half way,” she said. “I was trying to make up a story and make it interesting and write it from my own perspective and have it be a fictional thing. I realized when I was writing it, ‘Oh, that’s about my dad.’”

“It became more important to me as the writing process went on,” she added. “When I came up with the line, ‘I could’ve been your heroin,’ it was like, that’s it. It was very therapeutic because I always thought as a kid that I could’ve been the deciding factor or the one that could’ve changed something. But, I was just a kid. What am I going to say or do?

“It was kind of nice to be able to write that in a song,” she said. “Get it off my chest.”

Leffler also has dabbled in acting, appearing in the Jonah Hill film “Accepted” and the TV show “The Genesis Files.”

Being in front of a camera or up on stage are just things that seem to fit Leffler’s personality. It’s been in the cards her whole life.

“You become a different person in a sense,” she explained. “Like right now, I’m wearing pajamas and no makeup and I’m just hanging out. That’s how I am in normal life. When I’m on stage, that kind of transforms tenfold. It’s fun.

“Some friends are very surprised when they first see us live because they know me in my everyday life and when we perform, I let loose and I’m dancing,” she said. “It’s a surprise to some people.”